Oct 10, 2007

I recently inherited an older computer that really isn't much good for anything. It is a Toshiba Tecra 8200 with a Pentium III processor and 256MB of RAM. Since it is a little older, and slower than the modern day stuff, I decided I wouldn't put Windows on it because lets face it, that would just be painful.

I decided to put Linux on it because as one of my old bosses once told me, "You can run Linux on an empty soda can and an old 9 volt battery if you wanted to!"

Since this laptop isn't much better than an empty soda can, I decided I would give it a shot. I put Xubuntu 7.04 on it because of the lower overhead than regular Ubuntu with Gnome. I couldn't use the regular Live CD installer though, so I had to use the alternate install cd that uses a text based installer instead. Now everything is working fine.

What I am going to use this for though is something my wife can use when she goes to the coffee shop. She keeps asking if she can borrow my laptop, but I am always using it. Besides, my laptop is running Linux also, which she doesn't care for so much.

How am I going to make her use this one, when she doesn't like Linux in the first place? Easy, I am not asking her to completely make the switch (That would be suicide). No, I am only asking her to use this as something to play with when in the coffee shops, or wherever she needs to take a laptop. She still has her desktop PC at home with Windows on it for anything important to her. I also changed the GDM login screen to make it look like a Windows XP welcome screen, and the desktop wallpaper to the grassy fields to make her feel a little more at home! If only I can find a Windows XP USPLASH theme also this laptop will be complete!